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Show DEATH OF FATHER LAMBERT. j Father Lambert, editor of the New York Free- i1 man's Journal, philosopher, logician, controver- j ialist and, above all, a great priest, who in his day t ' . i pleased God, died last ilonday. When Ahner, the i son of Ner, died by the hand of Joab, David la- I . mented that "a great man had fallen this day in I Israel," so when the sad news of the death of the I ' intellectual and loveable priest was pent out last I . Tuesday, the American public. Catholic and non- I , Catholic, mourned that a great man indeed hath I fallen. We knew him well ; we at times colabo- I rated with him and stood with him on the same 1 platform when his simplicity of manner, his be- I nignity, his tenderness of facial expression added I a fascination to his charming addresses. I And if we are asked what trait in the character I of this very scholarly priest most strikingly im- f - pressed us, we would have to reply. "Emphatically I - his humility." The besetting weakness of many ! i men when they reached the summit of popularity 1 i ' and the heights of eminence, is intellectual pride. Father Lambert was an essentially great man. and a really great man is never a proud man. "Who . thinkest thou," asked the disciples who came to Jesus, 'is the greatest iu the kingdom of heaven!" "And Jesus, calling unto him a little child, set him in the midst of them; and said: Amen, I say ; to you. unless you become as little children, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven." Father Lambert had all the simplicity, the trust, the unquestioning faith of a little child, and so fixed and firm was this faith, so positive was he 1 in his belief in the divinity and indefectibility of j the Catholic Church, that he one time said to us: "The Church of God can proclaim no article of faith that I am not at once prepared to believe and to acoept." His belief in the Real Presence of the Body and Blood of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, was like unto the conviction of St. Thomas after he had touched the wounds of his Risen Lord and exclaimed: ex-claimed: "My Lord and my God." By a singular jind happy coincidence the last contribution of Fa-. Fa-. . , lher Lambert to the controversial literature of his ' Church was his masterly refutation of the objec- . tions leveled against the Real Presence, and read ; at the great Eucharist Congress when the Triest cf God was on his deathbed. With the prayer of ! the Church of God for the soul of each and every- j one of her children who enters the life beyond the s grave, we are in sympathy, and with the great Church we pray: "Eternal rest give to him, 0 ' i ' Lord, and may perpetual light shine upon him." ; Green be the turf above thee, Friend of my early clays. IXone knew thee, but to love thee, Xone named thee, but to praise. |